A helping hand for fathers

A team leader within the
Faculty of Health and Medicine's Family Action Centre, Dr Richard Fletcher is
shining a spotlight on the role of fathers.

Dr Richard Fletcher
leads the Fathers and Families Research Program (FFRP) within the Family Action
Centre at the University of Newcastle.

The FFRP team
focus on research and teaching around fathers, particularly fathers of young
children and babies.

Richard
believes that we as a society need to change our expectations and beliefs relating
to the role of fathers, for the benefit of the whole family and wider society.

Actively
working towards this goal, Richard and his team have several projects in the
works. They are in the process of trialing a smartphone based program that will
offer information, mood assessment and support for new and expectant fathers,
in a bid to identify and address paternal perinatal depression.

Another
project, run by Dr Jennifer St George, is assessing the importance and safe limits
of rough and tumble play between fathers and children, beginning with
pre-school aged children.

A third
project sees Dr Chris May working with couples on parenting partnerships. Through
identifying and encouraging factors that create successful co-parenting dynamics,
the projects aims to enhance the well-being of all members of the family.

As a result
of the team's work, both government departments and non-government
organisations (NGOs) have begun to review their policies and
standard practices to identify and enhance opportunities for fathers'
involvement.

CHANGING
PERCEPTIONS

As well as
teaching courses in the Master in Family Studies program, the team provide
consultancy services to organisations around Australia, and across the globe,
on how to more successfully engage fathers in areas that have previously been
dominated by maternal caregivers.

Richard sees
the consultation work that he and the team at the Family Action Centre undertake
with health professionals, and other services such as schools and welfare
agencies, as a giant step towards changing understandings of the roles of
fathers. But there is still a long way to go.

"There's
still a very strong idea in the community
and amongst professionals about parental roles. Many think that engaging mothers
as the primary caregiver is sufficient, and fathers are just an optional extra,"
he explains.

"Fathers are
invisible in many places, and that is endemic. Not because people dislike
fathers, but because the system is set up to be focused on mothers."

Some services
and organisations are aware of the need to engage dads, but have been
unsuccessful in their attempts.

"When people are
challenged about this, they generally want dads involved," Richard affirms.

"Often,
however, they just don't know how to do it."

ADDRESSING
ROADBLOCKS HEAD ON

Richard's
research revealed possible long-term negative impacts on the children of dads
with mental health issues. Fathers' depressive symptoms in the first year after
the birth predicted behavior problems in their children years later.

"If dads'
mental health has such a dramatic impact then we need to be screening dads for
depression, not just mums," Richard explains.

"This is a
relatively new idea."

"We were so
focused on the mum being the main affect that we didn't factor in the dads. Now
we see it matters a lot, right from birth."

New costs
related to babies, decreased family income due to maternal leave, plus new and extra
family related duties, often combine to make the physical attendance of men at
perinatal services impractical.

This
increased pressure comes at a time where changes to routines and relationships
can create stress and isolation, making dads vulnerable.

"We always
worked on the idea that dad's should come to the same groups as the mums,
parenting classes and things like that," he recalls.

"But then we
thought, what if you weren't trying to do that, what if you accepted the fact
that they're not able to come in, how do you talk to them?"

BUILDING
FOUNDATIONS

In response
to these limitations, Richard and his team have designed a smart-phone based
program that allows mobile connection for new and expectant dads.

Participants
will receive texts containing information and links, and self-report their
mood. If the mood tracker identifies them as needing extra support, they will
be offered a phone call from a counsellor trained in this area.

Following the
recent success of a six week pilot of the SMS4dads program, a twelve month
trial will start later this year. Funding for the program, which includes a
website and social media presence, comes from Beyond Blue and the Movember
Foundation.

"When dad's
miss the classes or activities, they miss the contact and the links to other
people. They may never get the chance to
say to anyone, look I'm really stressed," he points out.

"This is a
way of bringing dads into the system and keeping them hooked up," explains
Richard.

TAILORED
AND TARGETED SUPPORT

Although only
in the trial phase, the SMS4dads project has already produced spin-off
programs.

Richard and
his team are working with the Young and Well Co-operative Research Centre,
local Aboriginal communities, and the University of Newcastle's Centre for
Rural and Remote Mental Health to develop a website for young Aboriginal dads.

The Stayin'
on Track: Young Aboriginal Fathers Project is focused on the experiences of
young Aboriginal dads in Moree, Tamworth and Newcastle.

The project
participants receive the same smartphone mood assessment and information as the
SMS4Dads users, but also receive follow up support directly from community
leaders and project facilitators, Charlie Faulkner and Craig Hammond.

A pivotal
component of the project involves the participants sharing their stories.
Filmed interviews with the fathers will be available on the website for other
dads to access.

Another
spin-off is in the works with the Queensland Department of Health.

"They were
looking to run a project using SMS messages for mums. When they heard about our
SMS for dads projects they approached us to partner with them," Richard
explains.

"It's a much
more mainstream approach so we're very excited about that."

A
SEASONED WARRIOR

Richard
credits a varied career, a talented and innovative team, and much life
experience for affording him the insight needed to address the challenges
related to actively engaging dads.

Following a
stint as a high school science teacher, Richard took up to a position in the
Equity Unit at the University of Newcastle.

From there
his maths and teaching qualifications gained him a position in Holistic Health
within the Faculty of Health.

After
completing his masters in Medical Science, studying epidemiology, Richard earned
his PhD focusing on fathers and attachment.

Although not
a clinician himself, Richard often works with health professionals on issues
related to fathers, and has delivered many antenatal programs for expectant
dads.

He credits
his own family with giving him the advanced understanding of the role of
fathers needed to make his work relevant.

"I have three
daughters and two stepdaughters,"

"My kids
would say they taught me just about everything I know and they'd be right. They've
taught me a lot, and still do."

Back to the future: Feedback control and favourable odds

Combating uncertainty with algorithm designs and computer simulations, Professor Rick Middleton's electrical engineering research is helping to improve the efficiency of a number of real-world processes.

Studying practical problems
from a mathematical viewpoint isn't for everyone. For Middleton though, it's a
satisfying challenge. His theoretical work involves 'a lot' of calculus,
differential equations and linear algebra, and simultaneously (and
surprisingly) adopts some of the creative thinking techniques usually reserved
for those in the literary arts.

'My mind is quite analytical,'
he admits.

'But there are no clear-cut answers or
solutions in the research I undertake.'

'Problems are always formulated
as abstractions of reality with limited fixed steps and many possible
directions.'

Adding to this unusual twist
in investigative efforts, Middleton is ambitiously looking to optimise feedback
control loops in a broad range of dynamic systems. The electrical engineer's multi-capacity
algorithms are designed to regulate behaviours in industrial, biological and
mechanical processes, with recognition of the need to combat – and sometimes just
cope with – instability also influencing these adjustments.

'We're looking at things
where the action you take now affects things over time,' he explains.

'So what we want to do is watch
what happens a little further down the track, compare that with what we want to
happen, and then modify control loops based on these observations.'

'If we knew everything and
could predict the future perfectly we wouldn't need to bother.'

Computational complexities

Middleton first began
exploring the creative constraints and opportunities of feedback mechanisms
during his PhD candidateship in the late 80s. Opting to study computer control
systems, the born and bred Novocastrian formulated differential equations to demonstrate
the likenesses between analog integrated circuits and discrete time models.

'The two were once thought to
be very different due to the way their mathematics had developed,' he says.

'But I was able to prove
they're in fact quite close with one another.'

At the same time valuing the
differences between discrete time models and analog integrated circuits,
Middleton was also able to reformulate computer controls so that they took
advantage of operational incongruences. With measurements and adjustments made
at finite points in the former, and measurements and adjustments made continuously
in the latter, he similarly showed uncertainties could be accounted for by
meeting somewhere in the middle.

'Instead of focusing purely
on what happens next, which had long been the case for computer control
systems, I used differences to indicate that we should really be looking at
what happens between now and the next step,' Middleton discloses.

The pluck of the Irish

Seeking to build on this understanding
of system dynamics post-PhD, Middleton initiated a number of projects in health
sciences and other fields. Working both here and abroad during these earlier
research days, he also sought to expand the application of feedback control
loops.

'At the time they had very
good gain properties but would often add extra harmonics, which distorted the
sound.'

'Feedback mechanisms were
engineered to ensure nothing had to be compromised – the signal could be
boosted to make it louder without any distortion.'

Another of Middleton's
projects involved studying systems biology – this time in the Republic of
Ireland. He took on a five-year appointment at the National University of
Ireland Maynooth's Hamilton Institute, electing to approach the behaviour and dynamics
of Parkinson's Disease from a novel mathematical angle.

'What happens in patients
with Parkinson's is quite well studied in terms of the sequence of events, but
it's not well understood in terms of what causes what,' Middleton concedes.

'We don't know exactly why
the neurons degenerate.'

Recognising the 'reasonably
large impact' Parkinson's has on our aging society, the Director of the University
of Newcastle's Centre for Complex Dynamic Systems and Control also sought to
understand how the disease progresses despite common drugs used that compensate
for the symptoms resulting from dopamine losses.

'We looked at particular
cells in the brain, especially some of the neurons that degenerate early,' he
says.

'We also looked at the
different feedback mechanisms that exist there and why things might go wrong
and cause damage to these cells.'

Fine-tuning the green machine

Most recently, Middleton has
been researching and revising renewable energy processes. He's collaborating
with a PhD candidate, Sonja Stuedli, to examine the current behaviours of
electricity suppliers and consumers.

'At the moment it's reasonably
cheap to produce renewable energy but often hard for us to store – and this is
well known,' Middleton asserts.

'Renewables can be stored very
effectively in hydro systems but we don't have enough of these systems to store
the amount we need.'

Simultaneously conducting
mathematical analyses and computer simulations of local load capacities, the
pair is also looking to ensure homeowners are able to make the most of
available energy resources. Sometimes things as simple as having signals from a
central authority to let us know when there's too much power being used or
there's some spare, these adjustments take full advantage of the rapidly
varying generation of renewables.

'One of the other things
people have realised is that if we were smarter in our homes about being able
to turn things on and off and reduce our load at the right time, we could match
up our consumption of energy to when cheap energy is readily accessible,' he declares.

'This will allow us to match
up demand with solar sources without the big demand for storage.'

Providing feedback on feedback

Acknowledging the study of single
feedback loops is now 'largely done,' Middleton anticipates a shift in the
direction of Control Theory research. Already talking about expanding smart
grids and introducing smart cities, the multiple-award winner also points to a
fundamental reengineering of electrical and telecommunications industries.

'Almost all of the problems
we continue to have, even little things like finding a car parking spot at
University, tend to worry about the dynamics and the effect of the answer,' he
says.

'In many ways feedback
control could and should help us to manage these intricacies and uncertainties.'

Collaborative Environments for Creative Arts Research

Collaborative
Environments for Creative Arts Research (CeCAR) is a newly launched research group
within the Faculty of Education and Arts at The University of Newcastle.

CeCAR brings together national and international
researchers in the creative arts, humanities, sciences, health and social
sciences with external collaborators in the community, industry, other
universities and institutes.

CeCAR Director, Professor Richard Vella, said CeCAR
provides an interface for artists outside the university to collaborate with
researchers in the creative arts, sciences, social sciences, humanities and
health.

"From an interdisciplinary perspective, expertise from diverse
disciplines combined with the creative arts can produce new outputs and models
of understanding in the science, technology and humanities disciplines. They can
also generate exciting new art works based on this research, "Professor Vella
said.

"Research in haptics, interactivity, digital environments,
robotics, communication and cognition are just some examples of fields that can
include creative arts research."

Two successful projects already undertaken
by CeCAR include:

Supanova, a rich media peer
review annotation software environment for the presentation and discussion of
research in the creative arts.

The Space Time Concerto
competition featuring an internet-linked ensemble spanning five countries.

Career Summary

Biography

I received my PhD from City University of Hong Kong in 2002. After my postdoctoral training with Prof. Rudolf Wu, I continued to work in the same institution as a Lecturer until joining the University of Newcastle in 2009. I am now an academic in the Discipline of Environmental Science and Management in the School of Environmental & Life Sciences (SELS).

My primary research interests are in the Molecular Toxicology of Environmental Stressors and Chemicals.

In particular, I am interested in (1) understanding the molecular mechanisms of endocrine disruption caused by hypoxia and environmental chemicals and (2) developing cell- and animal-based assays for the screening and detection of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Overall, my research covers both basic science aimed at understanding the fundamental mechanisms of environmental toxicity and applied science concerned with the development of diagnostic tools for assessing and monitoring environmental toxicity. Outlined below is a summary of my recent research activities and findings:

1. Environmental Obesogens

The prevalence of obesity has been dramatically increasing worldwide during the last several decades. In recent years, there is growing epidemiological evidence indicating a positive correlation between the exposure of human population to EDCs and body weight, suggesting a possible role of EDCs in increasing obesity rates. The "obesogen hypothesis" is an emerging view proposing that exposure to a subset of these chemicals (obesogens) disrupts the weight-control mechanisms and ultimately increases obesity. To date, most of the known obesogens are those directly increasing adipogenesis and lipid accumulation, while the ones that contribute to diet-induced obesity (DIO) are understudied.

Leptin is an adipocyte-derived hormone that represses appetite and increases energy expenditure. Leptin inhibits appetite by decreasing the activity of the orexigenic NPY/AgRP/GABA neurons and increasing the activity of the anorexigenic POMC/CART neurons in the hypothalamus. Leptin action is exerted through its binding to the leptin receptor (OB-R) expressed on the surface of these neurons. Recent research showed that the disruption of OB-R activation (after treatment with leptin antagonists) during early development can lead to adult leptin resistance. Leptin resistance is a medical condition in which individuals are weakly responsive or unresponsive to high circulating levels of leptin and regarded as an important predisposing factor for DIO. Based on this existing knowledge, we hypothesise that early-life exposure to environmental chemicals that act as leptin antagonists can enhance the development of leptin-resistance and DIO in adults.

In collaboration with my co-worker Dr Richard Kong at City University of Hong Kong, a pilot screening program was recently initiated to identify environmental chemicals that act as leptin antagonists using biophysical and cell-based assays. Further effort will be made to assess the ability of the identified candidates to induce the developmental programming of adult leptin resistance and DIO using zebrafish (an important human disease model). This project is anticipated to provide important information regarding the contribution of developmental programming to the obesity epidemic, through assessing the role of early-life exposure of environmental chemicals in the development of adult leptin resistance and obesity. Since the rising prevalence of obesity has been recently noticed in livestock, pets, and wild animals, the knowledge about the mechanism of action of environmental obesogens and the technologies developed in this research could also be applied to a much broader range of biota beyond humans. Eventually, the outcome of this research may aid in devising new regulations on the safety of animal feed and the release of obesogenic chemicals to the environment.

2. Estrogen-mediated Vitellogenesis in Oysters

Oysters respond to EDC mixtures with the induction of the female egg yolk protein, vitellogenin (Vtg), availing a biomarker which indicates the presence of estrogenic contaminants in sewage effluent receiving waters. Despite this, the precise mechanism through which estrogens exert their action to induce vitellogenesis is unknown. Estrogen receptors (ERs) with homology to vertebrate ERs have been identified in selected molluscan taxa, yet those found to date do not bind or are unresponsive to estrogen. We hypothesise that estrogens may bind to receptors yet to be identified in Mollusca, with lower structural similarity to vertebrate-like ERs, and such receptors act as estrogen-dependent transcriptional regulators of vitellogenin expression. In an effort to investigate this possibility, Dr Geoff MacFarlane (UoN) and I initiated a project to isolate and characterise novel “functional” ERs from the native Sydney rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata). Our recent progress indicated that an invertebrate-like ER isolated from the Sydney rock oyster ovarian tissues shares a similar ligand (estrogen) binding pocket with that of the human ER and is expressed in response to estrogenic compounds. Further effort will be directed at clarifying its functional roles in mediating vitellogenesis and gonadal development and its epigenetic regulation in response to the exposure to estrogenic compounds. At the application level, this research will provide important information (an ER pathway specific to invertebrates) for the development of bioassays for screening xenoestrogens with ecotoxicological relevance to molluscs.

3. Fish Hypoxia

Previously, my co-workers and I have demonstrated for the first time that hypoxia can disrupt sex differentiation via modulation of gene expression for estrogen biosynthesis, leading to a male-biased sex ratio in zebrafish (Shang et al. 2006). This work has highlighted the alarming impacts of aquatic hypoxia on fish reproduction and sustainability, and thus attracted worldwide attention, as exemplified by cover stories written by Science and Nature as well as reports by CNN and ABC. This study has been cited 60 times since its publication in 2006. Later studies also provided scientific evidence that the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) regulates a number of genes involved in fish growth and reproduction in response to hypoxia (Yu et al. 2006a, 2008; Chu et al. 2010). To assess the applicability and specificity of HIF-1-regulated gene expression as biomarkers for monitoring aquatic hypoxia, we also made efforts to decipher the crosstalk between the xenobiotic transformation pathway and the HIF-1 pathway. Intriguingly, we demonstrated that the existence of xenobiotics can enhance HIF-1-mediated gene expression via increasing the cellular levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), indicating that the presence of environmental xenobiotics must be considered when interpreting HIF-1-based hypoxia biomarker results (Yu et al. 2008). In 2012, my co-workers (Kong & Wu) and I obtained a seed fund ($US 115,384) from the State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, China to study the interactive effects of climate change and hypoxia on fish sex determination.

4. Fish Leptin

The study of obesity and appetite control in fish models is an emerging field of research. In the last few years, my co-workers and I highlighted striking similarities in the function and regulation of leptin between fish and mammals. Our recent work suggests that leptin elevation under hypoxic conditions is a pathophysiological response common to both zebrafish and mammalian models (Chu et al. 2010). In another prior study, we reported for the first time the characterization of a fish long-form leptin receptor that contains all the signature motifs and domains found in the mammalian leptin receptors (Wong, Yu et al. 2007), implying the function of leptin receptor is conserved in both fish and mammals. Recently, using gain-or-loss gene function techniques, we demonstrated that leptin is the molecular link between hypoxia and endocrine disruption, leading to the suppression of the aromatase gene (cyp19a) and hence estrogen production in fish (Yu et al. 2012). Taken together, these findings provide novel insights into the molecular mechanism of endocrine disruption under hypoxia. This research successfully attracted $US 108,974 funding from Hong Kong General Research Fund (GRF) in 2011.

5. In-vitro bioassays for EDCs

For years, I have been collaborating with Prof. John Giesy (Canada Research Chair in Environmental Toxicology, University of Saskatchewan) on the development and validation of a H295R cell line screening test to evaluate toxicant-induced effects on steroid biosynthesis (steroidogenesis)—the H295R Steroidogenesis Assay (Gracia et al. 2004; Zhang et al. 2005; Gracia et al. 2006; Xu et al. 2006; Gracia et al. 2007; He et al. 2008; Song et al. 2008). This assay has been successfully used to assess the endocrine-disrupting potential and the mechanisms of action of various chemicals and environmental samples. This assay is currently being developed as part of Tier 1 of the US EPA Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program and an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) test method validation program.

6. In-vivo bioassays for EDCs

We recently demonstrated that induction of hepatic choriogenin H (ChgH, a fish egg-shell protein precursor) mRNA expression in male marine medaka can serve as a highly sensitive biomarker for environmental estrogens (its sensitivity is even better than vitellogenin) (Yu et al. 2006b; Cheng et al. 2008). This novel discovery led us to develop a ChgH-GFP transgenic marine medaka for monitoring environmental estrogens in marine water. Our recent progress indicated that this sentinel fish can detect 17β-estradiol (E2) at nominal concentrations as low as 1 μg/L. To make quantification of in vivo GFP expressed in developing fish embryos feasible, we previously developed an automatic 4D (3D plus time) acquisition system and the imaging processes of deconvolution and thresholding (Yu et al. 2006c). This 4D imaging system provides a simple but powerful means to quantify in vivo gene expression in a developmental toxicology context. The technologies have been successfully commercialised as environmental and food safety consultancy service in Hong Kong (Vitargent (International) Biotechnology Ltd).

Research ExpertiseEcotoxicology Molecular toxicology Obesogen screening Embryotoxicity assays Development of bioassays for EDC screening and detection

Environmental hypoxia can occur in both natural and occupational environments. Over the recent years, the ability of hypoxia to cause endocrine disruption via perturbations in ste... [more]

Environmental hypoxia can occur in both natural and occupational environments. Over the recent years, the ability of hypoxia to cause endocrine disruption via perturbations in steroid synthesis (steroidogenesis) has become increasingly clear. To further understand the molecular mechanism underlying hypoxia-induced endocrine disruption, the steroidproducing human cell line H295R was used to identify microRNAs (miRNAs) affecting steroidogenic gene expression under hypoxia. Hypoxic treatment of H295R cells resulted in the downregulation of seven steroidogenic genes and one of these, CYP19A1 (aromatase), was shown to be regulated by the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1). Using bioinformatic and luciferase reporter analyses, miR-98 was identified to be a CYP19A1- targeting miRNA from a subset of HIF-1-inducible miRNAs. Gain- and loss-of-function analysis suggested that under hypoxia, the increased expression of miR-98 led to the downregulation of CYP19A1 mRNA and protein expression and that it may have contributed to a reduction in estradiol (E2) production. Intriguingly, luciferase reporter assays using deletion constructs of a proximal 5'-flanking region of miR-98 did not reveal a hypoxia-responsive element (HRE)-containing promoter. Overall, this study provided evidence for the role of miRNAs in regulating steroidogenesis and novel insights into the molecular mechanisms of hypoxia-induced endocrine disruption. (Figure Presented).